


Don't Let It Burn

by anotherhobbitt



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Aubrey can't sleep, Aubrey's Mother, Baking, Gen, Mentioned Character Death, Mentioned Funeral, cinnamon, neither can I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 18:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4574580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherhobbitt/pseuds/anotherhobbitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aubrey wasn't entirely sure why she was making cinnamon biscuits at 3:49 am.<br/>It wasn't that she had anything better to do, but a rational explanation would be nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let It Burn

**Author's Note:**

> This fic really got away from me, to be honest. I'm not quite sure what it is, or what it was meant to be.  
> Mostly, I just really like Aubrey Posen. Enjoy.  
> Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own!

Aubrey can't sleep.  
It's not unusual, but it is annoying. She has a full day of class and Bella rehearsals tomorrow.  
Well, today. It is 3:26 am.  
Kicking off the bedsheets, she stood up, head tipsy from exhaustion. She fumbled around for her phone and stabbed at it until it could act as a torch. Her eyes squinting in the harsh light, she stumbled out her bedroom and into the kitchen. The tiled floor was ice on her feet, prickling her toes.  
Aubrey went back for her slippers. They were panda caricatures, with cotton ears and embroidered mouths.  
She was back in the kitchen, her head clearing in the cold. The work top was sparkling clean, and she knew all the cupboards were organised. (By product or by colour.) Her eyes flicked from cupboard to chair to tile, unable to concentrate on anything, and still craving respite.  
Her hands began to twitch. She hated feeling idle, especially in the kitchen. Aubrey leant against the small white table, her shoulders hunching over. She stared at her slippers. One ear of the left panda was nearly falling off. This was unfortunate for the panda.  
Also, her right pyjama leg was slightly higher than the left.  
  
Aubrey wasn't entirely sure why she was making cinnamon biscuits at 3:49 am.  
It wasn't that she had anything better to do, but a rational explanation would be nice. She would write it on a post-it note, so she could explain the biscuit's appearance to Chloe in a few hours. Not many people decide to make cinnamon biscuits when they should be sleeping.  
Aubrey decided to add chocolate chips.  
The dough was thick, even before adding the chocolate. Aubrey was glad of the Bella cardio; her arm working to continuously cut and fold the mixture, the other wrapped around the bowl. A dull ache settled between her shoulders, growing stronger as the dough grew firmer.  
Aubrey emptied the hunk of mixture onto the previously spotless surface. Her arms were straining to kneed the mix, cardio regardless. The wood veneer surface was smeared with flour and dough, and Aubrey knew it would smell like cinnamon for days. It would leave its legacy of cinnamon spice on the plastic wood. Even her baking left a stronger impression than her.  
Sometimes Aubrey really hated her smart arse subconscious.  
Pushing all thoughts of Bellas and failure and law school from her mind, Aubrey turned her attention to finding a biscuit cutter.  
Her mind seemed to switching off.  


  
She found a jam jar lid at the back of the cutlery draw. It was only moderately dusty. A quick wash, and Aubrey started pushing out thin, firm disks of dough. They were arranged in regimental lines, precision her priority. Twenty 24 biscuits in the first tray, 32 in the second. Her soldiers lay in front of her, small and innocent, and she lay them to rest in the oven.  
  
The oven had always been the boring part of the process. Even when she was little, she took to wandering the hallway, the 15 minutes stretching into an eternity. In her teens, she paced the kitchen, peeking every 3 minutes. Those biscuits alway tuned out slightly stiff and burned.  
Now, in her final year of college, Aubrey sat cross-legged in front of the oven, and let her exhausted and over active mind wander.  
She knew it was a mistake to use her mother's recipe when she added the chocolate chips, and she felt herself slowly slip into the memories dragged up by the sharp cinnamon.  
The second to last time she had baked these biscuits, she was 9, and she wanted to make her father happy. She insisted, in her small authority, that everything be measured out to the gram, and that there would be absolutely no peaking in the oven during the boring part. Her mother had tied up her golden hair and indulged her perfectionism. There was even a magnifying glass to inspect the scales.  
The biscuits had turned out perfect.  
Her father hadn't even looked at them, the biscuits or herself and her mother. He didn't have the time for that homemade muck.  
  
Aubrey's phone shook itself off the table, clattering to the cold tiles, and drawing her out of her childhood. She pawed around for her phone, and shut off the timer. She opened the oven door, and reached for the golden biscuits. Blinding pain shot through her hand.  
Swallowing a scream, Aubrey jammed her hand under cold water, half expecting to see steam rising from her palm. The skin was red and raw.  
It would be a bitch to write with in 4 hours.  
Whilst trying to keep her hand under the tap, Aubrey stretched towards the table where she left the oven gloves. Her hand was nowhere near, but she did manage to nudge them off the table and onto her phone with a high kick.  
Bella choreo was also useful, it seemed.  
She moved with an urgency, swiping the biscuits from the heat and kicking the oven door shut. The baking tray nearly tossed onto the hob, followed by the second batch. Aubrey grabbed the fish slice, and quickly dropped it, forgetting pain would cover her palm.  
Moving slowing, not without shaking, Aubrey transported the biscuits to the cooling rack she left on the work surface. The melted chocolate smeared the tray.  
She moved the cooling rack to the table, hand still aflame, and turned back to the mess she made over small cinnamon biscuits.  
  
The flour and dough refused to budge. Aubrey knew she could try to see the funny side of scrubbing furiously at cinnamon dough at, Christ, 5:12 am. Sunlight would be bursting through the windows soon enough. Aubrey couldn't bring herself to smile.  
  
The last time she used this recipe, she was 13, and she snuck into the kitchen of the hotel holding her mother's funeral.  
It took her a while to find the flour, it was kept in industrial containers, and she'd had to taste it to make sure. The rest was easy enough, the cinnamon was already out on the metal work surface, and she had brought chocolate chips in her clutch bag.  
She didn't bother to be precise, barely keeping track of the steps, much less the amount of spice in the mixture. It dimly registered that the mix looked a little too orange and her hands tingled. She would later remember that the lid fell of the cinnamon pot.  
She wouldn't forget how her mouth burned with each bite, the spice making her eyes water, and the sheer heat of the still cooking biscuit burning her tongue red.  
Aubrey would remember how it didn't dull the ache in her chest. 

Aubrey squinted in the dawn light as she stood in the kitchen, still wearing her pyjamas. The work top was finally spotless, the bowls and spoons washed by hand and put away. She had scrubbed the floor too. Her hand, still blistered and raw, had faded to a dull throb through her arm.  
The only evidence she was ever there was the cooling biscuits on the table, and the absurd amount of flour on her pyjamas.  
Aubrey still hadn't slept. Although her biscuit baking seemed less irrational in the daylight of the anniversary of her mother's funeral.  
  
She didn't forget the date, it just took a while to remember it. Aubrey resolutely refused to mark it on any calendar, or write it in any planner. It wasn't something she wanted to count down the days for.  
She would take the biscuits to the Bella rehearsal, and it would be awkward and she would yell more than usual to compensate for looking anything less than apathetic. And it would be like any other wednesday.

Aubrey could handle any other regular wednesday.


End file.
